With Ferrari dominating the session’s opening exchanges, Hamilton, then nine tenths of a second off the P1 pace Sebastian Vettel, was pushing for an improvement when he put a wheel on the outside kerb on entry to the Fagnes corner.

He lost the rear end of his car and slid off track at high speed. He hit the tyres barrier on the outside of the corner hard, with the nose cone and front-right wheel of his car becoming buried under the tyre wall. The championship leader was unhurt, but the incident sparked a lengthy red flag period while his wrecked car was cleared.

The session resumed with 13 minutes left on the clock and most of the field quickly took to the track to put in qualifying sims. Vettel locked up on the entry to La Source at the very start of his run and thus Leclerc’s rise to P1 was relatively straightforward. And after an error-free lap the Monegasque driver took P1 with a time of 1:44.206 that went unchallenged to the flag.

Valtteri Bottas was third at the end of the session, with the Finn ending up four hundredths of a second off Vettel but more than four tenths of a second behind Leclerc.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo took a surprise fourth place in the session, with the Australian outpacing former team-mate Max Verstappen, whose best time of 1:45.312 was only good enough for P7, three tenths of a second off Ricciardo, However, Verstappen was unable to get the most out of his qualifying run as he hit traffic.

Sergio Pérez, who overnight signed a new three-year deal to stay at Racing Point, continued the team’s good form at Spa by taking sixth place with a time of 1:45.521, 1.315s off Leclerc’s pace and marginally ahead of Hamilton’s best time from early in the session.

Hamilton, meanwhile, held seventh place ahead of the Alfa Romeos of Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi, while the final top-10 spot went to Toro Rosso returnee Pierre Gasly.

Alex Albon, Gasly’s replacement at Red Bull, finished at the bottom of the order as he abandoned qualifying sims in favour of race preparation due to a an engine-related penalty that will see him start from the back of the grid.